Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini

Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is a Nigerian-British playwright and screenwriter.^[1][2][3]

Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini
Born	London
Alma mater	Metropolitan University City University
Occupation(s)	playwright, screenwriter

Education

Ibini has a BA in English literature and creative writing (2013) from London Metropolitan University,^[4] and an MA, with distinction, in playwriting and screen writing from City University, for which she was awarded a scholarship from BAFTA and Warner Bros.^[3]

Writing

Ibini's first play Muscovado was performed at Theatre503 in 2015; it is set in Barbados in 1808 and Time Out described it as "A small but satisfying drama about the British involvement in the slave trade".^[5][6][7] The play was one of three winners of the Audience Award of the Alfred Fagon Award for 2015.^[8]

Little Miss Burden was performed at The Bunker in 2019, telling the story of three Nigerian sisters, one of whom uses a wheelchair. The Stage's reviewer called it "a gem of a play".^[9][10]

The Unexpected Expert was broadcast by BBC Four in May 2020 as part of its series Unprecedented of plays written during and about COVID-19 lockdown. It shows a disabled influencer being told by a council worker that her support will be cut during lockdown.^[11][12][13]

Her 2020 Caring, cowritten with Gabriel Bisset-Smith, is "A horror-comedy about a disabled woman who finally finds a good carer — only to discover the carer is a serial killer.", and was among the 14 scripts (from 246 entrants) which were selected for the 2020 Brit List of the year's best unproduced scripts.^[14] In 2020 it was reported that shooting was planned for summer 2021.^[3]

Her play Sleepova, produced at the Bush Theatre, won her the 2023 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, jointly with Marcelo Dos Santos,^[15] and was nominated in the 2024 Laurence Olivier Awards for "Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre".^[16]

Personal life

Ibini describes herself as bionic and Queer, explaining: "I adopted the term 'bionic' when I became a full-time wheelchair user and had metal implanted into my leg after a traumatic fracture, even though the term encompasses my experiences from birth, that I have always needed some form of technology, equipment, or adaptation to live."^[17] She has Limb–girdle muscular dystrophy.^[17]